The Rebel & The Punch And Judy Man - uncut??

[Barry Vaughan]

Inspired by other threads on the forum, does anyone have the original uncut versions of these two Tony Hancock films, in their correct aspect ratios - 1:66 for The Rebel and Cinemascope (!) for The Punch And Judy Man?



(I understand that all DVD versions of the latter have been cut, as - I believe - was the VHS I had in the 1980s).

[Shelley Court]

I'm pretty sure both these films were made in the then standard European ratio of 1.66:1. The Rebel, at least, was shown on Channel 4 in correct ratio once upon a time. Very annoying that the box set of these two had both of them in an incorrect 1.33:1.

[Barry Vaughan]

An earlier discussion here decided there were different aspect ratios (this thread also lists the cuts in the Punch and Judy Man):



http://www.britmovie.co.uk/forums/la...ollection.html



I'd still like to know if anyone has them, in any format.

[didi-5]

Does anyone know what the cuts are? I just have the VHS and DVD versions so wouldn't know if anything was missing.

[Barry Vaughan]

From Hugo in the first post of the above thread:



"Punch and Judy Man has been severely cut, about 6 minutes removed. This includes the end of the breakfast scene with Silvia Syms, their juddering kiss when they bang into each other, the wonderful sequence where he goes out through her twee gift shop and deliberately rams a bunch of dried fowers up the backside of a china pig, the sequence in his garage where he has a row with Hugh Lloyd and later in the car when he is rude to the Mayor (Ronald Fraser). All gone. Making a lot of what follows incomprehensible."

[didi-5]

name='Barry Vaughan']From Hugo in the first post of the above thread:



"Punch and Judy Man has been severely cut, about 6 minutes removed. This includes the end of the breakfast scene with Silvia Syms, their juddering kiss when they bang into each other, the wonderful sequence where he goes out through her twee gift shop and deliberately rams a bunch of dried fowers up the backside of a china pig, the sequence in his garage where he has a row with Hugh Lloyd and later in the car when he is rude to the Mayor (Ronald Fraser). All gone. Making a lot of what follows incomprehensible."

Thanks. That does explain why the film seems a bit choppy in places. Wonder why these cuts in particular; very odd.

[JamesM]

Optimum Releasing, if there's a shorter version available, they're sure to release it.



I call them Minimum Releasing myself.

[Hugo]

The reason that the films were cut in the first place is that in the 1980s someone had the bright idea of releasing a VHS tape with a double bill of THE REBEL and THE PUNCH AND JUDY MAN.

Commercial VHS tapes lasted slightly over 3 hours (about 183 minutes) the running times of these two films are Rebel, 105 mins, PAJM 96 mins; giving a total of 201 mins. Allowing for the slightly faster speed of VHS this would come down to 193 mins total.

So even with trimming the end credits, this is still several minutes too long and had to be cut down to fit.

The irritating thing is that to produce the DVD they have now used this cut master-copy instead of going back to the original, and this shortened version has now become the standard version.

[MrT]

"Punch and Judy Man has been severely cut, about 6 minutes removed. This includes the end of the breakfast scene with Silvia Syms, their juddering kiss when they bang into each other, the wonderful sequence where he goes out through her twee gift shop and deliberately rams a bunch of dried fowers up the backside of a china pig, the sequence in his garage where he has a row with Hugh Lloyd and later in the car when he is rude to the Mayor (Ronald Fraser). All gone. Making a lot of what follows incomprehensible."



I'm having a grand sort out of my VHS library at the moment and I have found that I have a copy of The Punch and Judy Man taped from C4 in 1986. The print appears to be complete with the scenes described above intact. This is a first generation VHS in excellent quality and I'd be happy to copy all or just the deleted sequence onto dvd for anyone looking for the full version.



Mike (MrT)

[Mr Martin]

name='JamesM']Optimum Releasing, if there's a shorter version available, they're sure to release it.



I call them Minimum Releasing myself.

Its a great shame that Optimum Releasing don't make a little more effort with most of their DVD releases. If they wish to, they can produce good releases, as a few years ago the Sherlock Homes 1930's 1940's Box set was issued including restored prints of the films and also some extras. Unfortunately this type of release from this company is rather rare.



It seems that most of the older well known British Films appear to be be released eventually on DVD by Optimum Releasing, so a few more special editions etc would be most welcome.







.

[sizey]

Here are the missing sequences- if someone has the unedited C4 version and would be happy to do a dvd for me- would be very grateful- ta!

simoncatweazleATaol.com